Tag Archives: Kaiser Wilhelm II

Muhammad Nabi Omari also claimed that the U.S. cooperates with Ghani’s government to transport ISIS members between Afghanistan’s provinces . . . (MEMRI)

Former Taliban Official Muhammad Nabi Omari Claims U.S. Supports ISIS In Afghanistan, Says: 60-70% Of Afghanistan Controlled By Taliban; Our Goal Is To Establish An Islamic State

Muhammad Nabi Omari, the Taliban’s border police chief from 1996 to 2001, said in a July 9, 2019 interview on Russia Today TV that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani controls less than half of Kabul and that he cannot operate in other provinces or districts in Afghanistan because the Afghan people do not listen to him or recognize his authority. Omari said that every province in Afghanistan has its own independent government and that 60-70% of Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban. Omari also claimed that the U.S. cooperates with Ghani’s government to transport ISIS members between Afghanistan’s provinces, and he said that there are rumors that the U.S. has opened camps for ISIS throughout Afghan territory. He also said that Afghanistan’s intelligence agencies support, arm, and finance ISIS. Omari added that the Taliban’s goal in fighting America is to establish an Islamic state. Omari was held for 12 years in Guantanamo Bay and was released in 2014 in an exchange for Bowe Bergdahl. (MEMRI #7372)

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ALAN TURING TO BE ON NEW 50-POUND NOTE

At first this decision may seem like PC gone crazy.

Alan Turing was the subject of the movie “The Imitation Game.” No exaggeration, he saved hundreds of thousands of allied lives and cut World War Two short by an estimated two years. Turing was a British cryptanalyst who decrypted German intelligence messages for the British government during the Second World War.

“Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic, and in so doing helped win the war.” (Wikipedia. “Alan Turing).

“After the war, Turing worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine, which was one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948, Turing joined Max Newman’s Computing Machine Laboratory at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s.” (Wikipedia)

After the war, a homosexual offense led to the penalty of chemical castration. Some time after his release, he committed suicide, although this is disputed.

In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a public apology for the British government’s treatment of Turing. Four years later, he was posthumously pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II. It was announced this month that he will be featured on future Bank of England 50 pound notes.

It raises an interesting question: How many other talented individuals have been lost due to a sexual problem?

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JAMESTON REVISITED

July marked the 400th anniversary of the birth of American democracy.

Only twelve years after the initial settlement of Jamestown, the people exercised their right as Englishmen to have their own parliament. In time, this became the Virginia House of Burgesses (from 1643), which remained active in Williamsburg until the American Revolution, giving Americans 157 years to practice democracy.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were all members.

Sadly, 1619, when democracy was introduced, was also the year that slavery was introduced into English America, with the arrival of the first slave ship from Africa, in August. Four centuries later, demands for reparations are growing.

We woke up this morning to reports that Donald Trump will lay out his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan at Camp David in the coming weeks.

According to Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Trump will invite Arab leaders to the presidential retreat but not Netanyahu or the Palestinians.

Every indication is that the plan will propose autonomy for the Palestinians but will deny them an independent state.

In what seems to be a related move, David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel appeared on CNN yesterday and essentially endorsed Netanyahu’s position on the Palestinians. “We believe in Palestinian autonomy,” he said. “We believe that autonomy should be extended up until the security of Israel is at stake.”

The more things change, well, the more they . . . So it is with the perpetual German resentments of the U.S.

Recently German chancellor Angela Merkel reminded us of that German fixation, when she made some astounding statements to the German media that revealed what many Americans had long ago surmised.

Merkel all but announced that Germany, or for that matter Europe itself, is no longer really an ally of the United States: “There is no doubt that Europe needs to reposition itself in a changed world. . . . The old certainties of the post-war order no longer apply.”

She insisted that Germany views the democratic United States as not much different from autocratic Russia and Communist China: Urging Europe to present a united front in the face of Russia, China, and the U.S., she said, “They are forcing us, time and again, to find common positions.” And Merkel concluded that therefore Germany must find “political power” commensurate with its economic clout to forge a new independent European path.

In other words, in the calculus of the supposedly sober and judicious Merkel, the democracy that saved Europe twice from a carnivorous Germany — and Germany once from itself and once from becoming a Soviet vassal — is now similar to the world’s two largest authoritarian dictatorships, nations that not so long ago murdered respectively 30 million and 70 million of their own citizens. And how odd a sentiment for someone who grew up in Communist East Germany, a nightmarish state whose collapse was largely attributable to the Reagan-era effort to bankrupt and roll back the Soviet empire.

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THAT HAMILTON WOMAN

That Hamilton Woman was Winston Churchill’s favorite movie. One source says that he watched it over 80 times. He certainly watched it every night he was sailing across the Atlantic for a historic meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was made at a crucial time for England, in 1941. America was neutral and every nation in western Europe had been conquered by Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union was still neutral. So England stood alone against the forces of fascism.

“Throughout the centuries England has built up a Commonwealth committed to freedom . . . every few years she must sent out her ships to stop a dictator conquering the world.” So says the British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, on the eve of the Napoleonic Wars. England fought alone at that time, too, against Napoleon.

This has been the course of European events. Every so often one nation on the continent of Europe achieves domination over the others. Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler are the most famous dictators, who all, in turn, tried to conquer democratic England, but lost.

It’s happening again. Germany is the dominant power, as it was twice in the last century. This time it’s different. There’s no military rivalry involved (not yet, anyway), but Germany has achieved the ascendancy and wants to hold its position. Anybody who threatens it will earn the enmity of the teutonic state.

That’s what Brexit is all about.

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“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

The US midterm elections do not normally get much attention, as the office of the presidency is not up for a vote. This year has been quite different, with the election seen by many as a “referendum” on Donald Trump. The country is very divided and there was a very high turnout.

The Irish Times, of all papers, got it right with the following comment on the midterm election.

“Many in the (US) had hoped that the first full electoral verdict on the presidency of Donald Trump would deliver a decisive repudiation of Trumpism. The results do not bear this out.” — Irish Times.

In fact, Donald Trump’s legitimacy as president was confirmed by Tuesday’s election. He emerged as a credible candidate for a second term in 2020.

This goes even further – populist parties around the world have received greater legitimacy. Liberals and globalists will now have to accept that a significant percentage of the population does not want to continue in the same direction, but wants to put their own country first, over all others.

Brazil is the latest country to vote for a populist as president. Brazil is the second most powerful nation in the Americas. President Jair Bolsonaro has said that he will follow Trump (and Guatemala) in recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He also plans a radical program similar to what the US president is trying to do at home.

At a press conference the morning after the election, an African-American reporter with PBS accused the president of advocating “white nationalism.” Mr. Trump was quick to respond and point out that he is a “nationalist,” not a “white nationalist.” He puts America first. Most of the journalists present did not seem to understand the concept!

We are likely to see more evidence of this over the weekend when Mr. Trump joins European leaders for the centenary of the end of the First World War. The celebrations are being held in France. President Macron of France has already said that the war was a good example of how allies cooperating can achieve great things; he has also emphasized that the Europeans need to work together even more now that the US is less committed to Europe.

Another issue likely to arise is highlighted by this comment from the German newspaper Die Welt, following Tuesday’s election:

“. . . Trump is expected significantly to increase pressure on Europeans to invest the target of two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. Above all, Berlin will face pressure to spend billions and billions of euros, because the federal government is far from achieving this goal.” — Die Welt

It’s easy to understand why the president of the United States is pressuring Germany on this issue, but many Europeans, including Germans, are not so keen on seeing a more militarized Germany. Just because a nation has been a democracy for seventy years does not mean it will remain one. Just look at history!

The press conference on the morning after the midterms was also significant and not just because the PBS and CNN reporters were put down, for different reasons.

Nancy Pelosi was the Democratic Party spokesperson and, true to form, talked up her party’s gains on Tuesday, even though they were nowhere near as good as she herself had predicted. She spoke of how the “monied power” had been defeated, a throw back to when the Republican Party was considered the enemy of the working man.

On the same day, I learned of a new book by Anthony Scaramucci, “Trump, the blue collar president.” When I Googled the book, this blurb came up on “Google Books:”

“Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci tells the inside story of how Donald J. Trump, a billionaire living on Fifth Avenue, identified the struggle of blue-collar Americans, and won the Presidency. TRUMP, THE BLUE-COLLAR PRESIDENT is the comeback story for America and Americans …”

It’s clearly not possible for Nancy Pelosi to claim the Democrats are the party of the working man when Donald Trump, a Republican, is the “blue collar president.”

The Dems’ enthusiasm for the “caravan” moving through Mexico, headed for the border, will only result in Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder losing their jobs, forcing down wages. Trump’s promise to refuse them entry will help blue-collar workers far more.

Times have changed. Populists across the world are the new parties of “blue collar” workers – they appeal to the grassroots. But the liberal, intellectual parties fail to understand this.

Ms Pelosi, at 78, is out of touch with reality.

It was pointed out on the BBC the evening of the election that the average age of the three top Democrats in Congress is 75. This contrasts with the average age of the three top Republicans in Congress, which is 48. The new democrats entering Congress are not likely to want to be led by somebody who is so out of touch with the winds of change that are sweeping America. The last election showed that the Dems are the wealthier party. The Wall Street Journal last week said the midterms were a battle between college educated white women and non-college educated white blue-collar workers. It’s all topsy-turvy!

A further change was also highlighted in the Wall Street Journal (and on TV), that 40% of African-Americans now support President Trump. It’s not so long ago that only 4% voted for the Republicans!

Liberal news programs were enthused at the fact that the new House of Representatives is more diverse, with more women, including the first two Muslim women. But diversity is the opposite of unity and could do further damage to the political system.

One final thought comes from noted columnist Pat Buchanan who wrote this morning: “The war in Washington will not end until the presidency of Donald Trump ends. Everyone seems to sense that now.” (“The War for the soul of America”)

Jesus Christ once said that ”If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” (Mark 3:25). A recent poll revealed that one third of Americans think the country is headed for a civil war. This scripture was used by Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the last one, on June 16th, 1858.

The times, they are a-changing, indeed!

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BREXIT

Britain’s decision in a referendum to exit the European Union is getting more and more complicated. Today, Jo Johnson, the brother of the former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, resigned declaring that leaving Europe is “a terrible mistake.” This will make it even more difficult for Prime Minister Theresa May to steer the whole process through parliament. Others may resign as the Brexit deadline of March 29th gets closer.

It’s a mess!

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ISLAM

1) Pompano Beach, Florida, Friday Sermon By Imam Hasan Sabri: Palestine Must Be Liberated ‘Even If This Leads To The Martyrdom Of Tens Of Millions Of Muslims’.

2) Asia Bibi is a young Christian mother in Pakistan, who made the mistake of drinking out of a glass that had been used by Muslims. For this, she was put on trial for blasphemy. There were huge demonstrations calling for her death.

She was freed, but is going to have to leave the country as Muslim citizens still want her executed. There have even been calls for other family members and her lawyers to be put to death.

Pakistan remains an ally of the United States.

3) Saudi Arabia is also an ally, in spite of the officially sanctioned murder of a US based journalist who worked for the Washington Post.

Jamal Khashoggi went to the Saudi Embassy in Turkey to get papers that would enable him to marry. He never left. It seems that he was murdered in a gruesome manner, and then dismembered, his remains carried out in black plastic trash bags.

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GERMANY

Today is the centenary of the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. His resignation ended 400 years of Hohenzollern rule over Prussia and, after 1871, Germany. Wilhelm is often blamed for World War I, though it’s a lot more complicated than that. Two days after he fled to neutral Holland, the war ended. World War II started a little over twenty years later.

Today is also the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. On this night, November 9, 1938, almost 200 synagogues were destroyed, over 8,000 Jewish shops were attacked and dozens of Jews were killed in Germany under the Third Reich.